


A Second Worthy Being

by birdzilla



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdzilla/pseuds/birdzilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sten meets an old friend anew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Second Worthy Being

**Author's Note:**

> I am not entirely familiar with the various post-Origins works (still being only halfway through DA2), but I'm pretty sure from what I've picked up by osmosis that this is no longer canon-compliant. I wrote it pretty immediately after my first Origins playthrough, being inspired by the epilogue slide lines "an angry dwarven woman in the far north" and Sten's answer to whether there were worthy people outside Par Vollen.
> 
> Sten and Shale were just too awesome together to keep apart, is the crux of it.

After the Warden dies, he goes home.

He goes home with his sword on his back and an ache in his heart. The Beresaad takes him in as if he was never gone—-but he was gone, and he has changed. When the others ask if he had found any worthy beings in Ferelden, he tells them that there was one, only one. They ask, and he tells them of her, and they nod and affirm his judgement.

He thinks sometimes that he could have said there were two, and not been lying to himself—but they would ask to hear of the other, as well, and they would not nod after that story. A mage-thing that should only be put on a leash is not a worthy being to those who have not met her, no matter how strong her will and how sharp her humor. So he names only the one, and not the other.

Years later he realizes that if he had spoken to them of a second _dwarf_ , one who had undergone an agonizing, irreversible change to defend her people, they might have nodded after all.

He is honing Asala on the steps of a city courtyard when he looks up to see a small figure approaching. It is quite small and has very dark skin, a few shades darker and harder than the tarnished-bronze most common among Qunari. Its silvery-white hair is cut very short, like a child whose locks have been shorn for a misdeed, and it is hornless, like a child whose tips have not yet budded; for a moment, he thinks he is in fact seeing a poorly-behaved child, one who has recently faced one punishment and is fleeing another. But in the next moment he sees that it is clothed in armor, and has the features and walk of an adult. A dwarf, and an aging one at that.

The features are familiar, nigglingly so, and he frowns. She looks across the courtyard at him, and changes her angle of walk very slightly to stride towards him with the confidence of a friend. He looks at her again—-the flat plane of her nose, the broad chin, the broader temples—-and stands, sliding Asala back into her sheath.

"The Qunari still has its sword, I see," she says. "Or does it prefer to be called the Sten? I find myself more aware now, of-" she hesitates a moment "-preferences."

There is less of an echo, less of a rumble in her voice, and none of the hollowness there had been. But the gravel is still there, and the essential tone. Despite himself, the one who was once called Sten smiles.

"It is the Arishok now, Shale," he says. "But I do not mind being the Qunari."

"Of course it does not. But I am afraid that in this place, the humans would find it confusing," Shale says, with a trace of her familiar old tartness, as she sweeps a hand about to dismissively indicate the crowded city. "They have such small soft minds, to fit their small soft bodies. And it does not need to tell me that I am smaller," she adds with a trace of defensiveness, crossing her arms across her chest.

He looks down at her and tries to keep his face impassive, but the chuckle breaks free. “Even in a dwarf’s body, kadan, your spirit is still the proper size. And you are not soft.”

Shale’s smile is still craggy. As it should be. “No, I am not.”

There is an ache under his breastbone, but a pleasant one. He had not thought of himself as _missing_ those he had met in Fereldren. He has duties here, and friends, and the network of affections that among Qunari fills the same needs as family—-though more effectively, for among the Qunari, one’s brothers and sisters are by choice. There had only been two in Fereldren who he might ever have called sister, and neither were of the Qun. But he is gladder to see her than he had ever imagined.

"What brings you to the land of the Qunari, Shale?" he asks her.

She pauses and there passes a look over her face, so briefly that he isn’t even sure he’s seen it, of uncertainty. “I will call it the Arishok,” she says, “and I would—- _prefer_ -—if it would call me Shayle.”

There is barely any difference, but unlike the first time he had heard it spoken, he can hear it now. Perhaps she is stressing it, the higher pitch of the vowel, the very slight hitch after it so that the name almost, but not quite, separates into two syllables.

"Of course, kadan," he says, not quite trusting himself to get it right—-but he will practice, the first chance he gets, until he does. He senses that to err, knowing the rightness of it, would be an insult akin to deliberately calling a general Karasaad.

"Excellent," Shayle says, with a calm as if she had expected no other answer. "Though perhaps you will call me another name, once I have learned more of your Qun."

For a moment his chest feels too tight. “Is that why you have come?”

"That, and to see an old friend," Shayle says, shrugging and looking away; her voice goes a little gruff. "But I remember our conversations, Arishok. It said that the Qun accepts all beings, if they are willing to accept their place. And I would learn what place the Qun has for me."

"A suitable one, I expect," he says. "All lives have value in the Qun, if they are used well. I imagine that you will find great use for yours."

"I have crushed endless pigeons, and brought down the great birds of the north. I found that as good a use of my life as any," she says, a fierce little smile teasing the corners of her mouth. She looks sideways at him. "But I would like to try what _you_ would call a life well lived—-kadan.”

He has to swallow against the pressure in his chest, in the place where his love for her has been resting, before he can speak. “Then come with me, kadan. You may go to the priests, and you may learn of the Qun. And then we can speak together again, as brother and sister.”


End file.
